Brilliant noirish adaptation of Graham Greene's gritty novel with Attenborough superb as the psychopathic Pinky, a small time gangster and violent hood, who marries a witness to one of his crimes to keep her quiet. Disturbingly good.
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CHINATOWN (1974)

Certification18 Our Rating

Polanski has a go at the film noir detective thriller, very bleak, very twisted and very menacing it is to. Nicholson plays a private-eye in pre-war LA who is hired to pursue an adultery case, but finds himself embroiled in a complicated murder investigation.
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GLORIA (1980)

Certification15 Our Rating

Gena Rowlands, winning an Oscar nomination, is typically superb as the tough talking New York moll - half-whore, half-mother - reluctantly lumbered with a child the Mafia want dead. Tired of running, Gloria decides to confront the gangsters head on... A superb noirish thriller.
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OUT OF THE PAST (1947)

CertificationPG Our Rating

The film that catapulted Mitchum to stardom; after Kathie shoots her admirer and runs off with his 40 grand he, naturally, hires a private dick to find her. Although the dick finds Katie in Mexico, they decide to tell Sterling that he couldn't find her.
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THE LONG GOODBYE (1973)

Certification18 Our Rating

This is, along with Hawks' The Big Sleep, easily the most intelligent of all screen adaptations of Chandler's work. Altman in fact stays pretty close to the novel's basic narrative (though there are a couple of crucial changes), but where he comes up with something totally original is in his ironic updating of the story and characters: Gould's Marlowe is a laid-back, shambling slob who, despite his incessant claim that everything is 'OK with me,' actually harbours the same honourable ideals as C
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THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)

CertificationPG Our Rating

Film Noir from the Ealing funny man! Mackendrick's US debut is a rat-trap of a movie in which a vile NY gossip hustler (Tony Curtis) grovels for his 'Mr Big' (Burt Lancaster). Lancaster plays JJ Hunsecker, a monstrous, amoral and incestuous news columnist obsessed with wrecking his kid sister's romance. The dark streets stink of corruption and fear. Amoral and awesome with a great jazz soundtrack.
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THE THIRD MAN (1949)

CertificationPG Our Rating

The Graham Greene story of black-marketeer Harry Lime, who "dies" and then apparently comes back to life. A totally compelling thriller, set against a backdrop of shattered post-war Vienna and haunted by an evocative zither score.
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